Trachelospermum jasminoides var. pubescens 'Madison'

'Madison' is the cold-hardy Confederate jasmine, the selection that carries the beloved evergreen vine a full zone north of where the tribe usually stops. Vigorous and twining, with glossy dark leaves and the powerfully fragrant, white, star-shaped flowers that make star jasmine famous, this form has proved hardy into USDA zone 7, well beyond the reach of the standard Trachelospermum jasminoides.

The plant came to Woodlanders through the former Cedar Lane Farms Nursery in Madison, Georgia, where the selection proved markedly more cold-tolerant than typical Confederate jasmine, and is almost certainly the hairy-leaved variety, var. pubescens. Trachelospermum jasminoides is native to China and Japan, a self-clinging evergreen climber of the dogbane family, Apocynaceae; the name jasminoides, jasmine-like, records the scent and the starry flowers rather than a true kinship with the jasmines, and the Confederate name is variously traced to the Malay Confederation and to the American South, where the vine is so loved.

Beyond the garden, star jasmine has a long medicinal life in East Asia. The dried stems, known in traditional Chinese medicine as luo shi teng and recorded in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia, have been decocted to dispel wind-damp and ease rheumatic and joint pain, backache, and sore throat, a use shared in Korea and Japan and now studied for anti-inflammatory activity.

In the garden, grow 'Madison' against a fence, trellis, arbor, or post for the twining stems to climb, or let the vine spread as a dense evergreen groundcover on a bank. Site where the powerful evening fragrance can be caught, near a path, a door, or a seat, give good, well-drained soil in sun to part shade, and enjoy a Confederate jasmine that holds its evergreen leaves and its scent where the common form would freeze. One of the best evergreen vines for the Upper South.